According to the updated report in April 2019, The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasted that the World economic growth rate would drop to the lowest level since the economic crisis in the period of 2008 – 2009. Accordingly, the world economy was forecasted to grow by 3,3% in 2019 and 3,6% in 2020, the 2019 growth rate would decrease 0,2 percentage point compared to the January 2019 forecast. In Q1/2019, USD price tended to happen closely to the forecast in the end of last year and quite similar to the same moment of 2018. USD fluctuated continuously in Q1/2019 but it showed the cooling down trend compared to QIV/2018 and became more stable.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Q1/2019 was estimated to increase by 6,79% compared to the same period of the previous year, despite lower than the growth rate of Q1/2018, it was higher than the growth rate of Q1/2016, Q1/2017. The consumer price index (CPI) in the first 3 months of 2019 witnessed many big changes. CPI after rising sharply in the first 2 months of 2019, decreased in 3/2019.

The total import-export turnover of the whole country in Q1/2019 increased by 6.6% compared to the same period last year. In Q1/2019, the trade balance continued to record a trade surplus of 1.41 billion USD. Vietnam’s import and export still depends heavily on FDI inflows. Vietnam’s participation in free trade agreements in the past such as AEC, CPTPP, EVFTA … will be an opportunity to boost export activities. VIRAC expects Vietnam’s GDP growth in 2019 to reach 7.0%. However, it is still challenging to achieve the target set in 2019.

List of tablesTable 1: Forecast of world economic growth (%), 4/2019Table 2: Global monthly commodity price growth, Q1/2019 (%)Table 3: Regulations on the current compulsory reserve ratio, 2018Table 4: Capital adequacy level of the financial systems(%), 2018Table 5: Situation of banking restructuringTable 6: Impacts of CPTPP and TPP on Vietnam Economy until 2030 (%)Table 7: Execution process of the agreements in the FTA groupTable 8: Short – term capital rates for mid and long – term loans route according to Circulars 06 and 19Table 9: The volume of bonds issued and the plan for issuance in 2019Table 10: Statistics of some bonds issued by credit institutions in 2018